On the History of Allegorism

Abstract

I have shown in an earlier article that from the second half of the fifth century onwards the desire to defend Homer and Hesiod against accusations of immorality was certainly not the main motive which actuated the allegorical interpreters of the early poets. That desire, no doubt, existed; but the part which it played was wholly a subordinate one. In the present article I propose first to consider allegorism in its earlier stages, and to state my case for holding that the practice of allegorical interpretation cannot have originated in this desire of Homeric partisans to exculpate the poet. My view is that the function of allegorism was originally not negative or defensive but rather (as with Anaxagoras, Metrodorus, etc., in later times) positive or exegetical.

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